Firefighters Save Trapped Dog

Eight-year-old
Cockapoo Frisco was outside his home in Fairfield, Connecticut, barking Wednesday morning but then suddenly stopped. His owner, Katie Keilitz, suspected something was wrong and went searching for him. Eventually, she came across an “odd pile of rubble and heavy concrete slabs” in the woods next to her home, and heard noises coming from under it, she
wrote in an account of the incident she shared on Facebook. At first she didn’t think a 35-pound dog would have been able to squeeze in beneath it, but she waited a few minutes and could hear Frisco crying. Keilitz called the fire department and animal control for help, and her husband came home from work to start trying to dig the
dog out. Firefighters used structural collapse rescue tools and traditional digging equipment to free Frisco in a rescue that took about 30 minutes. It’s unclear how the
dog ended up under the rubble, but Keilitz suspects he crawled in while sniffing out a smaller critter and got stuck. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are to the
Fairfield Fire Department for coming so quickly today and helping us rescue our dog!” Keilitz wrote on Facebook. Frisco, who was covered in mud, got a bath and is recovering well. — Read it at
Fox CT

Vet Brings Music to 1,100 Animal Shelters

Dr. Pamela Fisher has made it her mission to bring music to 1,100 animal shelters across all 50 states, believing it helps calm the animals who live there. Her non-profit, the
Rescue Animal MP3 Project, donates MP3 players loaded with more than 30 hours of classical music, nursery rhymes and other soothing sounds. After installing one of the players for dogs at the Cut Bank Animal Shelter in Montana, vet tech and volunteer Tina Gunther says, “the difference has been dramatic.” While the affects of Fisher’s music mix haven’t been studied, she says a survey of 500 shelters found barking was reduced by half and the animals on average were more relaxed. — Read it from the
AP via the Detroit Free Press

Hong Kong Awaits Its First Panda Birth

After years of trying without success, the animal care team at Ocean Park in Hong Kong believes its resident panda Ying Ying is pregnant. They say they are “cautiously optimistic” that Ying Ying will give birth after ultrasounds late last month showed a fetus. Still, panda pregnancies are always precarious, and it’s still possible she could reabsorb or miscarry the fetus. Keepers are now monitoring Ying Ying around the clock, and anticipate a birth within about a week. — Read it from
Agence France Presse via Discovery News

Thinkstock

Crows May Learn From Deaths

Research from the
University of Washington finds that dead crows leave a significant impression on living crows. In an experiment in Seattle, the researchers would deliver food to a particular spot each day, encouraging groups of crows to congregate there regularly. Then, one volunteer would approach with a dead crow to see how the
birds reacted. They found the crows would mob the volunteer almost every time. But if the volunteer was carrying a dead pigeon, they were only mobbed 40 percent of the time. Up to six weeks later, many crows would still scold the visitor who’d brought the dead crow, even when they had nothing in their hands. The crows would also take significantly longer to approach food in the days after seeing the dead crow. “It’s amazing to think a crow — a
bird — is doing something like this that so few other animals are doing that we know,” said researcher Kaeli N. Swift. The study was published in the journal
Animal Behavior. — Read it at
The New York Times

Firefighter Adopts Kitten He Rescued

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Fire Rescue came to the aid of a kitten who was entangled in the undercarriage of a car Thursday morning. The driver called the department after hearing muffled meows when he got out of his car. The firefighters found the kitten entangled in the suspension arm of the car. They used extrication equipment to lift the car, and removed the tire to get to the
cat. The kitten wasn’t injured, but was scared and covered in dirt and grime. He now has a new home with one of the firefighters who saved him. — Read it at Miami’s
Local 10